to the fatwa one of the things that fascinated was the description of your early years in india and educated in england. you present yourself as a secular muslim. but one trying to understand the lion and your rol in it. >> i mean i grew up in a family in which there was very little religion. my father wasn't religious at all. but he was really interested in the subject of, you know, the birth and growth of islam. he basically transmitted that interest to me. so when i studied history at cambridge, i did a special subject in that exactly. while i was studying it was where i came across the so-called incident of the satanic verses. >> brown: you say in the bo you notedoodtory. >> 20 years later i find out how good a story it was. >> brown: you wrote when you finished the satanic verses you thought it was the least political of the novels you had written at the time. you were genuinely surprised at what had happened. >> i thought i was very respectful about islam. yes from a secular point of view but it talks about the birth of this religion and i thought it was pretty admiring of the person a